Miss America
On Sept. 10, 2017 the new Miss America will be crowned who will succeed Savvy Shields. In this picture, Sheilds is seen after winning the Miss America title on Sept. 11, 2016. Getty Images

The Miss America 2018 pageant will take place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Sunday, Sept. 11 when 51 beautiful women will compete for the national title. The 97th annual beauty pageant will begin at 9 p.m. EDT and will go on till 11 p.m. EDT.

The event will broadcast live on ABC TV and you can watch it online here. Other live streaming options include Sling TV and Hulu Live.

Chris Harrison from “The Bachelor” will return as host for the ninth year consecutive year, alongside two-time co-host Sage Steele. The winner will take the place of Miss Arkansas Savvy Shields who won the crown last year.

“American Idol” winner and recording artist Jordin Sparks, model and actress Molly Sims, Entertainment Weekly and People Magazine Editorial Director Jess Cagle, and country music singer Thomas Rhett will be on the judges' panel for this year.

The preliminaries for the competition began Sept. 6 and ended Sept. 9. Miss Texas Margana Wood won the first night of preliminary competition Wednesday. Miss Louisiana Laryssa Bonacquisti won the swimsuit competition while Miss Minnesota Brianna Drevlow won the talent competition with a classical piano recital Thursday. Miss Florida Sara Zeng won Friday's swimsuit competition.

After the preliminaries end Saturday, the Miss America 2018 will be crowned Sunday. Shields, the 22-year-old Arkansas native will hand over her crown during the event. She succeeded Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell last year.

“People forget and people don’t really know that [Miss America] is the largest scholarship organization in the world,” Shields told Fox News. “I am still walking away with over $90K in scholarship that I haven’t even touched. I can graduate college debt-free and go for more education, not even have to worry about it. I’m not just speaking for myself, I’m speaking for every single contestant, national, state, and local titleholder that is a part of this organization.”

Recalling the moment she was named the winner last year, Sheild told Fox News: "I’m pretty sure I blacked out… I fully didn’t remember until a month after I was crowned. It goes so fast and you do not stop so the moment you do stop it’s roughly when you’re at an airport a month later and you realize that you’re Miss America. But I remember that moment in pictures. I remember in visual frames of when I saw my mom at the end of the runway and then when I turn back around and saw my friends. And then I remember Miss Tennessee running towards me."

She also said: “You say the word ‘pageant,’ there’s a lot of connotations that come up of just having a crown and putting on lipstick. But that is .5% of my job when 99.5% of it is a year in service. I am going across the country visiting our troops during Thanksgiving break. I’m going to hospitals more than three times a month. And the rest of the days I am being a part of other organizations that are trying to change the world as well."

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